There is nevertheless a difference in the character of epochs. The epochs of Constantine, Charlemagne, Gregory VII., of the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, are seen in the retrospect to have a special light of glory about them. The seventh, tenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth centuries present a dark aspect. The tenth century particularly, which we are at present bringing under review, is generally called “the iron age” even by our modern Catholic historians, and not without considerable reason, more especially in respect to the state and condition of the Roman Church and the sovereign pontificate. Nevertheless, the common notion, derived from compendious histories and the generalized statements which form the commonplaces of popular literature, respecting the tenth age of Christendom is not correct and is extremely confused. It was not an age of complete barbarism and universal ignorance. Ozanam says: “Indeed, letters did not, at any time, perish. The truth is that the period of complete barbarism, supposed at first to extend over a space of a thousand years, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the capture of Constantinople, then gradually reduced to narrower limits, until it remained finally restricted to the seventh and tenth centuries, vanishes away under a more severe scrutiny.”[[76]] Cantù remarks: “This epoch is justly called the iron age, because of the cruel sufferings endured by individuals and nations; but humanity made a sensible progress in the face of these trials. We cannot, therefore, concur in the judgment of those who consider it the most unhappy period of the human race.”[[77]] We cannot make logical divisions of history into epochs exactly corresponding with the numerical notation of years and centuries. It would be absurd to suppose that at 12 A.M. of January 1, A.D. 900, to borrow Carlyle’s expression, “the clock of Time struck and an era passed away”; and that the same venerable old timepiece, from its corner in the parlor of the universe, struck again in just a hundred years, announcing the end of the iron age and the beginning of another of some different metal. The boundaries of epochs are not quite so determinate, and centuries, periods, epochs, run into one another, mix, blend, elude precise delineation. Cantù’s tenth epoch is not the tenth century, but the period beginning A.D. 800 and ending A.D. 1096. This period, between Charlemagne and the Crusades, far from presenting the aspect of a desolate waste to the eye, is crowded and variegated with events and persons of the most important and interesting character, and their history is one great act in the European drama, advancing it sensibly toward the consummation which we are still, in our own age, hastening forward and awaiting in the near or distant future. Within this great period are other and lesser cycles, embracing epochs, phases, temporary states of ecclesiastical and civil prosperity or adversity, alternations of various kinds, in Christendom, in Europe, or in portions of the Christian commonwealth, each having its distinctive notes. That part of it which is in the centre presents the characteristics of an iron age more distinctly marked than the preceding or following periods. The latter half of the ninth and the earlier half of the tenth century, taken together, really constitute the period which can with strict propriety be called the iron age. And within this century a period of about forty years, including the end of the ninth and the first years of the tenth century, was a sort of crisis in which Christian Europe seemed to have reached the dead-point in her progress, and, having passed it, went on again under the attraction of a new force.
This statement must not be taken as rigorously and uniformly applicable to all Europe and Christendom. The Greek Empire and the degenerate Eastern Church were in a state of hopeless decadence, verging toward a permanent downfall. England and Spain, on the other hand, passed through their worst times earlier, and were going upward and onward, led by great men and heroes—Alfred and the forerunners of Ferdinand and the Cid—just at the time when the rest of Europe was in the most disordered and disastrous condition. The crisis of the iron age affected chiefly the countries which had constituted the great domain of Charlemagne—France, Germany, and Italy. Its phases were various, in respect to time and other conditions, in these very countries. The whole panorama, as presented to our view in the pages of historical narrative, is as shifting, varied, apparently capricious, as mountain scenery in the changing aspects of light and shade, produced by sunshine, clouds, and moonlight, by transforming mists and sombre night. It is only when we rise to the logical order and sequence of events, trace effects to their causes, enlarge our scope of vision, ascend into the upper regions of a true philosophy of history whose atmosphere is the Christian idea and whose light is celestial faith, that a real order, harmony, and progression toward an intelligible and grand result are clearly discernible.
Some few general statements borrowed from this higher branch of historical science must be premised before we can come at a satisfactory view of our particular and immediate topic and set its details in systematic order.
The actual evils and miseries which afflicted the Christian people of Europe during the iron age were invasions of Saracens, Scandinavians, and Hungarians, incessant wars among greater and lesser princes, terrible famines and pestilences, and, in general, a state of turbulence, insecurity, social and moral confusion. This whole state of things was a relapse into the condition brought about by the fall of the Roman Empire and the barbarian irruption in the seventh century. The great reason why it occurred is found in the fact that Charlemagne’s great empire and power passed away and that no unifying, organic power succeeded it until Europe had passed through a period of transition. The Roman Empire had to pass away to make room for Christendom, and for a time its débris and the new material lying on the ground for a reconstruction made a state of confusion. Charlemagne’s fundamental work was solid and lasting, but he had to make some temporary structures which were showy but not substantial, and therefore fell down or were torn down; causing more disorder for a time, until they were cleared away to make room for the permanent and splendid walls to be built up according to the idea of the divine Architect. The European, Christian Idea is not that of one, uniform political western empire, ruled by an autocracy which continues or succeeds to the old, imperial Roman power. It is that of a community of nations, bound together by a common faith, common principles, international law, mutual alliance and amity, and preserving full scope for distinct and beautifully various forms of free, spontaneous growth and culture. Its regenerating, vivifying, and controlling spirit is Christianity in the Catholic organization. Its centre of unity and force is Rome and the spiritual supremacy of the pope. The political supremacy of an emperor—understanding by an emperor a universal monarch ruling subordinate kings set over dependent kingdoms—is incompatible with this true idea of a Christendom. Even, supposing this universal political sovereignty united with the sovereign pontificate of the Pope, it is incompatible with that true idea, partly for the same reasons, partly for different reasons from those which militate against it, supposing the two distinct powers to exist separately. It was necessary that the pope should possess his own separate sovereignty in a kingdom of moderate size. It was also necessary that some one powerful king should be endowed by the pope with a special, sacred pre-eminence among other sovereigns, as the protector of his civil princedom and of his spiritual supremacy. This was the meaning of Charles the Great’s imperial coronation. He was, in fact, really the king of almost all Europe. But this was temporary. His kingdom was divided. The imperial dignity was conferred on different sovereigns of France, Italy, and Germany from time to time, and for above thirty years remained in abeyance for want of a proper subject to receive it, until it rested at last on the head of the first of the Saxon line, passing thence to the Franconian house, and afterwards to the Hohenstaufen. The German emperors were, however, by election kings of Germany, and as such governed their states; whereas they were made emperors by papal consecration, and in that capacity were protectors of the Holy See and the church. The authority which they lawfully exercised as emperors in the city and principality of Rome was the authority of a civil magistrate who was not the head but the right arm of the pope, the real political sovereign in his own state.
The European crisis of the tenth century was a period in which the Carlovingian dynasty was going into decadence, and the new dynasties of France and Germany had not yet arisen. There was a great want of able sovereigns, and especially of men who were strong enough to fulfil the functions of the imperial office. To turn now especially towards Italy and Rome, it was the lack of a strong hand to preserve peace and order among the petty princes and states of Italy, and to protect the pope and the Holy See from the rebellions and intrigues of powerful nobles and contending factions within and around the Roman principality, which was the chief cause of the long obnubilation of the sun of Christendom—the Roman Church—during the tenth epoch. We propose to enter now more minutely into the exposition of the historical truth respecting this period, so far as it relates to the popes and the Roman Church directly and immediately.
The ordinary accounts of this epoch in Roman and Italian history produce a singular impression on the mind of the reader. It seems as if the gas had been suddenly turned off and all had become dark, or as if an express-train filled with passengers had all at once been stopped by an impediment in the middle of the night at an obscure way-station, to the surprise and chagrin of all on board when they awoke in the morning. One is puzzled and disgusted by a confused, disconnected story which reads like the record of crimes and disasters in a modern newspaper. The persons mentioned seem to have no reality or distinct character—to be like the spectres of dreams or the personified abstractions in parables. The very names of the popes, such as Formosus, Marinus, Lando, Romanus, have a strange, unpapal sound. They appear and vanish with marvellous rapidity, leaving no trace behind. When we read that the world was generally expected to explode in the year 1000, we are not surprised, but rather wonder why it did not, and are quite relieved to find ourselves safe and sound in the eleventh century, and hear those “whom the Lord hath sent to walk through the earth answer the angel of the Lord, and say: We have walked through the earth; and behold, all the earth is inhabited, and is at rest.”[[78]]
One great difficulty in picking the thread of history out of this snarl is the paucity of contemporary documents. Another cause of misunderstanding and misrepresentation has been the flippant and mendacious character of the most extensive and minute of the chronicles of the period, that of Luitprand. The same kind of gossiping, scandal-mongering centres which exist among us may not have existed in the tenth century. There were no newspapers filled with libels and calumnies, falsifications of news, reports of the army of detectives of the press. But there were the same violent factions, party animosities, intrigues, mutual denunciations, raising a cloud of smoke and dust like that which overhangs a battle-field, in even more virulent activity then than we now behold them in our modern political mêlées. All the condensed scandal, partisan vituperation, indecent gossip, and malicious calumny of the time in which he lived are collected in the memoirs of Luitprand, and from these have been infiltrated through succeeding times, leaving great stains which only the acid of criticism has been able to efface. Even Fleury says of him that he is extremely passionate, excessive both in his abuse and his flattery, and given to buffoonery to a degree which transgresses the bounds of decency. He was originally a subdeacon of the church of Toledo in Spain, afterwards a deacon of the church of Pavia, during which time he was sent by Berenger, King of Italy, on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople. Later he became Bishop of Cremona, but was a disgrace to the episcopate. He was a courtier of Otho the German emperor, who sent him on another mission to Constantinople, a violent adherent of the German party, bitterly hostile to the Italian party and all the popes who favored it, and a participator in the schismatical proceedings of Otho’s anti-pope. His credit is now entirely lost. But at the time of the revolt of Luther all the incriminations of the popes and the Roman clergy, whether true, false, or doubtful, were gathered up and made the most of to sustain the bill of indictment against the Holy See. The same stories, repeated by numbers of writers, produced the effect of concurrent testimony on the general mind of the readers of history. Baronius and other Catholic historians, not having sufficient materials for testing and correcting all these accusations, let a number of them pass uncontradicted or admitted their truth. Fleury and some others of the lowest Gallican school, who always write like advocates who have taken out a brief against the Holy See, have in their historical works neglected and perverted facts in a manner which is equally shallow and perfidious, and as contrary to sound criticism as it is to orthodox doctrine. It is only since the discovery of Flodoard’s Lives of the Popes, the critical and learned researches of Muratori, and the great modern advance of genuine historical science, that the tissue of lies depending solely on the worthless testimony of Luitprand has been swept away. A better appreciation of the great course of events and the essential facts of history is now possible, and even easy. Men of genius, learning, and conscientious devotion to truth have lighted up these dark, buried crypts of the substructure of Christendom, as the zealous archæologists of York have done in the old minster, whose foundations were laid in the very period we are describing.[[79]]
In regard to many particular events and certain individuals whose names figure in connection with the transactions of an obscure epoch we cannot expect to acquire a perfect certainty. Nor is there anything of moment depending on the discovery of the truth in such cases. We have to be content with a probability or with a doubt in thousands of matters of detail. There are a considerable number of popes of whom we know next to nothing. In certain instances it is not easy to determine whether an election of a given individual was valid or invalid. Of the truth or falsehood of the accusations made against several popes and other persons of high ecclesiastical or civil rank, and of the reports of assassinations and other great crimes, which are so frequent in this period of disorder, we cannot always form a certain judgment. There is enough, however, of that which is certain or fairly probable to show the connection, the continuity, and the identity of principles both with the foregoing and the following epochs, and to furnish ample material for the vindication of the cause of the Holy See and the Papacy. There is a sequence in the progress through the struggles of transition; there are great and good men, noble and heroic achievements, interesting and curious episodes—in fine, there is a human and a Christian character showing its lineaments in place of the cloudy spectre with distorted features which has heretofore scared the imagination.[[80]]
We begin our historical sketch with Pope Formosus, who was elected A.D. 891. This is one of the popes of whom we have said above that they seem in our common histories like a mere shadow of a great name without a personal reality. Besides, there is a certain cloud on his memory, arising from the fact that he was deprived of his see of Porto by John VIII., and that he was the subject of a great outrage from his successor, Stephen VI. A careful examination of his history shows, however, that he was no common man and was both a good and an able pope. As Bishop of Porto he was one of the most conspicuous among the Italian prelates. He left his see to become a missionary among the Bulgarians, where he labored zealously and successfully in the work of their conversion. There is nothing to show that his censure by Pope John VIII., which seems to have been chiefly occasioned by his taking an active part in a political opposition to the Emperor Charles the Bald, involved in it any moral dishonor. He was restored by Pope Marinus, and the indignities inflicted on his memory by his successor were a wanton and causeless outrage, which was condemned and repaired by a subsequent pope with the approbation of the Roman people.
Europe was just then in the depths of the disorders and miseries caused by the decay of the imperial authority and the degeneracy of Charlemagne’s successors. Berenger was king in Northern Italy, but Guido, Duke of Spoleto, and his son Lambert had been crowned emperors in opposition to him and to all the French and German claimants. Toward the end of the short reign of Formosus, which lasted less than five years, and after the death of Guido, the dissatisfaction of the pope with the conduct of Lambert and his mother, Ermengarda, induced him to summon Arnulph, King of Germany, to come to the relief of the Holy See and of Italy. He obeyed the summons, made a forcible entry into Rome, where the Lambertine faction had gained the upper hand and thrown Formosus into prison, and was by him crowned emperor. This was the beginning of the appeals of the popes to Germany for intervention in Italian affairs, and of the never-ending conflicts between the Italian and German parties in Italy, whose finale we have but just witnessed in our own day in the exclusion of Austria from her dominion in Venetia. We have no doubt that it was necessary, and on the whole productive of good results, that the imperial crown should be transferred to the German sovereigns. But, without delaying to consider this point, we simply take note of the fact that this was one of the great questions of violent dispute and contention which disturbed the Roman Church and the papal elections so long as there were Italian princes who disputed the imperial dignity with the Germans. Arnulph returned almost immediately to Germany. Formosus died and was followed to the tomb a few weeks after by his immediate successor, Boniface VI. The party of Lambert succeeded in obtaining the election of Stephen VI., the first of the popes who grievously dishonored the tiara. His violent and shameful conduct caused a temporary reaction in favor of the opposite party, by whom he was imprisoned and strangled. Lambert was, nevertheless, acknowledged by the three succeeding popes, Romanus, Theodore II., and John IX., and by two successive councils, and the pact between the church and the empire was solemnly renewed. These three pontificates filled only a space of three years and closed the century. The year 901 saw a new competitor for the imperial crown, which death had taken from Lambert’s head, in the person of Louis of Provence, who was actually crowned by Benedict IV., but very soon driven away by Berenger, who was still reigning in the north of Italy. Berenger was an able and warlike sovereign, in many respects worthy of admiration, and capable of filling the imperial office with honor to himself and advantage to Italy. Circumstances were, however, extremely adverse. He maintained himself in possession of a certain pre-eminence among the petty sovereigns of Italy, and carried on vigorously wars against the Saracen and Hungarian invaders. He was even crowned emperor in 915, but was never able to establish his authority on a solid and permanent basis, and at last, in 924, he was assassinated by a conspiracy of Italian nobles. With him the imperial office became extinct, and remained so until it was resuscitated, thirty-eight years afterward, in the person of Otho the Great.